Senior Demographer, Forecasting & Land Use

About Houston-Galveston Area Council   

The Houston-Galveston Area Council is one of the largest regional planning commissions in the country with a diverse service area of 13 counties and more than 7 million people. We are the pulse of our region addressing issues that cross city limits and county lines every single day.
We make decisions that affect our transportation system, ensure the safety and well-being of our seniors, connect people to jobs, help families recover from natural disasters, preserve water quality for our children, and so much more. We work to make the region a great place to live, work, and thrive.

What will I be doing?
As the Senior Demographer – Land Use & Regional Growth Forecasting, you will perform advanced demographic, socioeconomic, and land-use forecasting and modeling to support transportation and regional planning. You will lead assigned forecasting and modeling projects, develop and maintain parcel- and TAZ-level socioeconomic datasets, and prepare socioeconomic inputs for travel demand modeling, long-range transportation planning, corridor studies, and scenario analysis.

You will work closely with transportation modelers, GIS professionals, planners, consultants, local governments, and regional partners to develop defensible forecasts, evaluate regional growth patterns, and communicate complex demographic and land-use information to technical and nontechnical audiences.

• Lead assigned regional and subregional population, household, employment, and land-use forecasting and modeling projects at regional, county, TAZ, parcel, and other geographic levels.
• Develop and apply growth allocation methodologies, forecasting assumptions, and alternative development scenarios for transportation and regional planning applications.
• Develop, maintain, integrate, and analyze parcel, building, county appraisal, plat, master-planned community, demographic, economic, employment, and land-use datasets.
• Develop socioeconomic and land-use inputs for travel demand models, Metropolitan Transportation Plans/Regional Transportation Plans (MTP/RTP), corridor studies, scenario planning, and other regional planning activities.
• Coordinate forecast assumptions, TAZ structures, socioeconomic datasets, and modeling requirements with transportation modelers, GIS staff, planners, consultants, local governments, state agencies, and other regional partners.
• Analyze relationships among transportation investments, accessibility, development patterns, demographic change, households, employment, and regional growth.
• Develop, maintain, test, and improve regional socioeconomic and land-use forecasting models and analytical workflows using Python, GIS, SQL, R, SAS, UrbanSim, or comparable modeling and analytical tools.
• Perform and coordinate technical QA/QC of forecasting inputs, model assumptions, methodologies, intermediate results, and final socioeconomic and land-use datasets.
• Prepare technical documentation, methodology reports, data dictionaries, presentations, and clear explanations of complex forecasting and modeling results for technical and nontechnical audiences.
• Provide technical guidance to other staff, support knowledge transfer, and contribute to the continued improvement of socioeconomic and land-use forecasting methodologies and workflows.
• Respond to technical and data requests from internal programs, local governments, consultants, partner agencies, and other regional stakeholders.

Key Qualifications  

• At least five years of progressively responsible professional experience in demographic forecasting, socioeconomic forecasting, land-use modeling, regional growth forecasting, transportation planning, or related regional/MPO/DOT forecasting work.
• Experience developing or supporting population, household, employment, socioeconomic, or land-use forecasts for regional planning, MPO/DOT programs, travel demand modeling, MTP/RTP development, corridor studies, scenario planning, or similar applications.
• Demonstrated experience working with demographic, economic, land-use, parcel, employment, or other large and complex datasets.
• Strong skills in GIS, quantitative analysis, spatial analysis, data management, data QA/QC, and interpretation of public-sector datasets.
• Experience using Python or similar scripting/programming tools for modeling, data processing, workflow automation, QA/QC, debugging, or reproducible analysis.
• Ability to independently manage technical assignments and coordinate forecasting or modeling projects involving multiple datasets, disciplines, and stakeholders.
• Ability to communicate complex demographic, socioeconomic, land-use, and modeling concepts clearly through technical documentation, presentations, maps, tables, and other analytical products.
• Strong analytical, problem-solving, organizational, and technical project coordination skills.

Do you have…  

• Bachelor’s degree in applicable academic discipline or related field of study.
• 5  years of experience working with local government, nonprofit programs, school or in job related duties.  ​​​​​​​

Preferred Qualifications

• A bachelor’s degree in Demography, Urban or Regional Planning, Geography, Economics, Statistics, Data Science, Transportation Planning, Environmental Studies, or a related field.
• Master’s degree or PhD in Demography, Urban or Regional Planning, Geography, Economics, Statistics, Data Science, Transportation Planning, or a related field.
• More than eight years of professional experience working with an MPO, state DOT, Council of Governments, regional planning agency, state or local government, university, consulting organization supporting public agencies, or other public-sector partner organization.
• Experience developing or supporting socioeconomic forecasts used in travel demand models, Metropolitan/Regional Transportation Plans, scenario planning, corridor studies, or long-range regional planning.
• Experience working with parcel-level data, county appraisal data, building and development data, TAZ-level socioeconomic datasets, master-planned community information, or other detailed land-use datasets.
• Experience with one or more modeling and analytical technologies, such as UrbanSim or comparable land-use modeling platforms, Python, R, SAS, SQL, ArcGIS/GIS, or other spatial and statistical analysis tools.
• Knowledge of population and employment forecasting methods, land-use allocation methodologies, demographic analysis, economic trends, development patterns, and transportation-land use interactions.
• Experience developing alternative growth or land-use scenarios and evaluating the implications of transportation investments, accessibility, demographic change, or development patterns.
• Experience preparing technical methodologies, model documentation, data dictionaries, QA/QC procedures, presentations, dashboards, or other analytical products for planning and modeling audiences.
• Experience coordinating technical work with multidisciplinary teams that may include transportation modelers, planners, GIS professionals, economists, consultants, local governments, and other regional partners.

All employees of H-GAC are required to reside within the agency’s region of service to support our commitment to excellence in service of our region.

H-GAC is an equal opportunity/ADA employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, gender, national origin, or protected veteran status.